


The Northern Lights

by nirvhannahcornell



Category: Metallica
Genre: Comfort Food, F/M, Family Fluff, Fluff, Food as a Metaphor for Love, One Shot, Romantic Fluff, imagine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-22
Updated: 2019-06-22
Packaged: 2020-05-16 08:24:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19314340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirvhannahcornell/pseuds/nirvhannahcornell
Summary: Picture this, dear reader: going to the quaint little country of Denmark with Mr. Lars for a little immersion. Sequel to Come Away With Me 💜





	The Northern Lights

**Author's Note:**

> Enjoy your danishes on Sunday, dearies 😘😘

After you asked for some time off, Lars has taken you back to Copenhagen with him to meet his parents, and his grandparents, and also his godfather. The flight takes hours but you arrive early in the morning, just before sunrise. Given that it is the middle of autumn, darkness still covers the northern sky; just prior to landing, you take a peek out of the plane window to the gray cold waters of the North Sea, glimmering with faint embers from the lights lined about the belly of the plane and the sun struggling to show its rays onto Northern Europe.  
When the plane touches down in Copenhagen, this is where the butterflies rise up inside of your stomach. It’s real now: you are a few minutes from meeting his family.  
The two of you step out of the airport, right as the sky paints itself royal blue with a kiss of yellow on the southeastern horizon. And speaking of kisses, Lars gives you one on the cheek. In the dim, early morning twilight, you see him showing you an endearing little smile, one that fills out his chubby cheeks thus making his face look rounder and sweeter.  
“Tak for at komme, min kærlighed,” he says to you.  
“Come again?” you ask him, feeling you should have polished up on your Danish prior to leaving the country.  
“Thank you coming, my love,” he whispers. A car rolls up to the curb in front of you.  
“Ah! There’s my dad right now!”  
Torben, with his long dark beard interwoven with silvery hairs, big bright eyes, and wrapped in a long black winter coat, greets you with a warm, beaming smile and a kiss on the back of your hand. He takes the two of you back home to meet Lone, Lars’ mother. Their house is a cute little cherry colored house in the neighborhood of Gentofte, which you soon discover is not too far from the very southernmost end of Sweden.  
His grandmother however, is quite sick at the moment and doesn’t want you to catch whatever is afflicting her at the moment. Lone, on the other hand, is more than elated to meet you, this sweet young lady who treats her little boy like a knight, feeding his tummy and cherishing his body and his heart.  
You join them in a cozy, belly-warming authentic Danish breakfast of tea and coffee accompanied with freshly baked bread which warmed up the house by the very smell alone. Lars offers you butter followed by cream cheese and then homemade strawberry jam.  
“It seems like a lot to put on toast but this is how we do it here,” he assures you.  
If Mother told you the key to a boy’s heart is through his stomach, your dad told you to keep an open mind, and thus you try it. In fact, you find it quite delicious. The butter adds to the softness of the cream cheese while the jam gives a little cap of sweetness on top. It’s almost like eating a sundae. Lone offers you what’s known as wienerbrød on the next holiday, or as Lars calls it, “danish on Sunday”.  
You immerse yourself in the Ulrichs’ hospitality and then, after breakfast, the humbleness surrounding Denmark with a walk about the neighborhood and the wharf. In fact, it comes as no surprise that Lars is always as hungry as he is, day in day out. All of the muesli, and the ripe fresh fruit with powdered sugar, and butter and sour cream, and rye bread... it must feel redundant after some time, and he needs to fill his stomach with something more.  
Indeed, not one time does the sun fully rise above the horizon: you see some faint rays of orange light perforate the royal blue sky overhead as the four of you walk to where Lars used to go to school.  
The two of you lurk behind his parents as you walk along the low fence dividing the school yard from the street. The two of them joke about something but then Lars lowers his voice to you.  
“In Danish school, the kids often—I wouldn’t say bully me, but they would make fun of my round face.”  
“Aw!”  
“Yeah! And as a result, whenever I look into a mirror, I always think I have like... three big fat flabby chins under my face.”  
You stop in the sidewalk and gently hold onto either side of his round, full face for a kiss on the soft skin on his cheek. You then lift his head up a bit so as to kiss him under the chin before looking into his eyes.  
“Don’t,” you whisper to him as the distant orange rays of autumnal sunlight highlight the crown of his head. “Don’t.  
“Don’t what?” he asks you, baffled.  
“Don’t say that about yourself—you are a beautiful, soft, sweet boy. Your mom obviously sees you as such.”  
In the dim light, you see him blush and you give him another gentle kiss on his cheek.  
“Come along, children!” Torben calls out to the two of you, and without another word, you both hurry up to them.  
At one point during the walk about Copenhagen, past the cute little boutiques and shops and brightly colored apartment buildings lining the cold stone streets, you put your arm around his lower back as you see Lone doing the same thing for Torben. Underneath the heavy fabric of his coat, you feel the soft flesh over his hip; you feel him snuggling closer to you. With every step of the way, you feel yourself growing more attracted to him. Every inch of his body is beautiful... beautiful, and strange, and soft, much like Denmark herself.  
Torben and Lone lead you back to Gentofte and the cute little house. You reach the front step when Lone gestures up to the dark sky. You look up at the filmy bands of neon green light stretched across the sky, moving in silence akin to curtains in the wind.  
“Wow,” you gasp.  
“Welcome home, darling,” he whispers into your ear.  
You kiss him on the cheek, but then, as Torben unlocks the door, you decide to amp it just a tiny bit and you lean into Lars’ mouth, a dainty little kiss on his cherry lips. Even if you do not come back to the land of the Danes, you will always return to this softness, his softness, and you know the feeling will persist once you have dinner and then go to sleep next to him in that old bed his parents still have in the upstairs bedroom.


End file.
